The Gilded Wolves (The Gilded Wolves, #1)(60)

“I don’t know you.”

He laughed. He wore a mask of small, dragonfly wings. Zofia had never seen a man so pale in her life. A sickly sheen covered his skin.

“Roux-Joubert,” he said, releasing her hand. “May I have the first dance?”

She’d hardly noticed the couples swirling around her. Once she’d fixated on the equation of the floor, nothing else seemed to matter.

“I—”

“Please,” said the man, though his voice did not sound coaxing. “I insist.”

Zofia wanted to say no. But she did not know how fine ladies did such a thing. They would laugh or simper, say something behind a fan. Until now, most of the guests had let her be, knowing she only kept company with Monsieur Faucher, the high-ranking government official. Séverin had been her shelter. If she said no, they would notice she was acting strangely. Zofia felt a flash of panic, as if someone had just locked her into a room. Would the rest of the crowd notice? Would they circle them? Demand to know what was so wrong with her that she couldn’t stomach a single dance?

“So many people are watching, Baroness,” said the man. A slight sneer curled his pale mouth. “You would not want to embarrass me, would you?”

Zofia quickly shook her head no, and Roux-Joubert pulled her into the dance. The man’s hands were somehow freezing and damp with sweat. She tried to pull back, but the man, for all that he looked weak and ill, held tight.

“Where is it that you’re from in Russia, Baroness?”

“Poltava.”

“Stunning place, I am sure.”

Roux-Joubert spun her, and she took the moment to look around the room, hunting for any sign of Hypnos. He should have found her by now. The music picked up, a frantic cadence building in her ears, joining with the erratic pulse of her blood. The floor beneath Zofia felt like cut ice. She couldn’t dance well even when she wasn’t stressed, and her movements felt less like gliding and more like struggling for purchase. He spun her again, his hand tight on hers, until a warm voice cut through the orchestra’s straining—

“Baroness.”

Hypnos.

He stood behind Roux-Joubert, one brown hand on the man’s mustard-colored suit.

“May I?”

Roux-Joubert’s mouth pressed into a tight line.

“Of course,” he said, kissing Zofia’s hand once more. She shuddered against the icy touch. “I do hope to see you again … Baroness.”

Hypnos swept her up in the dance. His body was warm and his brown hands dry and hot beneath hers.

“You look like a marvel, ma chère,” he said.

Other couples moved around them in dizzying spirals. Hypnos maneuvered them to the center of the room, far from the watchful gaze of the matriarch. Zofia moved closer, angling her reticule so he could slip out the original key. She felt his fingers against her wrist, then, just as quickly, they were gone. Hypnos smiled, then whispered in her ear, “I do mean it. You are stunning. Though I did not quite like the look of your friend.”

“He’s not my friend.”

“Am I your friend?”

Zofia was not sure what to say to that. Hypnos had threatened to imprison them … which did not seem like a thing a friend should do. But he was other things too. Funny. He treated her no differently than anyone else. Zofia looked at his face. She knew that pattern of features: widened eyes, arched eyebrow, forced grin. Hopefulness. Vulnerability, even.

“What would friendship entail?”

“Well, on Wednesdays, we sacrifice a cat to Satan.”

Zofia nearly tripped.

“I’m teasing, Zofia.”

Her cheeks turned hot. “I don’t particularly like jokes.”

Hypnos gave her a spin. “Well, in the future, I’ll be more aware of that. Friends?”

The dance drew to an end. Near the entrance of the staircases, the clocks chimed the eleventh hour. Zofia weighed his words before dipping her chin. “Friends.”

At the conclusion of the dance, bits of the crowd broke off. Many of the invitations to House Kore expired an hour after midnight, and some who wished to leave early began to make their way to the entrance. Zofia stood in the greeting line, scanning the crowd as she waited to say her goodbyes. Somewhere in the crowd, Séverin was plotting the route to the library. Hypnos was sneaking the key back into the office. Tristan, Enrique, and Laila would be waiting for her in the greenhouse. But her mind kept returning to the man who had asked her to dance. Roux-Joubert. His touch reminded her of something … but what?

“Did you enjoy your time with us, Baroness?”

The matriarch stood in front of her, a slightly concerned expression on her face. Zofia startled, fumbling for the right words. She had practiced this exchange, but the floors and the man had thrown her off.

“Yes,” she said stiltedly. “And … and I like your floor.”

The matriarch blinked. “What?”

Oh no. Zofia felt that familiar tightness again … that sensation of reaching for a step on a staircase that wasn’t there. She’d said the wrong thing. She wanted to take it back, but then she remembered Laila’s advice. To perform. To own whatever illusion one cast of themselves. So she straightened her back. As elegantly as she could, she gestured to the floor.

“The logarithmic spiral based on the golden ratio,” she said. “One of nature’s favorite equations.”